The Providence News

SAY HOWARD IS "DR. ROBERTS" OF PHILADELPHIA

Coroner Dugan said that he would not decide what action he would take in the new development in the case until he consults with the authorities at Boston. He declares that Roberts, alias Hunt, alias Howard, is the most daring, the most resourceful and most able of the malpractice syndicate. Hunt's name while in this city was Dr. William E. Roberts. He had headquarters in three different sections of the city, one on Twelfth street, below Walnut, another near the Ashmead "hospital" on Eleventh street, above Poplar, and another at 660 North Twelfth. All were run as "hospitals," and the place at Twelfth and Walnut streets was run as an adjunct to Mrs. Ashmead's "baby crematory," three doors below.

Dr. Roberts, in leaving the city hurriedly, four months ago, left a trail of deaths behind him. In a house in West Philadelphia, on North Eber street, the body of Maude Gilpin, a choir singer, was found a few days after Dr. Roberts' sudden departure, and Detective McKinney found evidence that preparations had been made to dissect the body of the beautiful young woman, just as was done in the Durrell girl's case.

It was known that the young choir singer had appealed to Dr. Roberts to aid her in trouble.

DR. ROBERTS FLED.

In this place there was every appliance for the disposition of the bodies of victims. In a jocular mood they called it "Mrs. Ashmead's paradise."

Neither Coroner Dugan nor Detective McKinney now has any doubt about the identity of Howard. They say that beyond the peradventure of a doubt he is Dr. Roberts. The detective positively identified the picture of Hunt last night as that of Dr. Roberts.

For more than a year Coroner Dugan has been endeavoring to break up the malpractice syndicate of which Dr. Roberts was one of the recognized heads. Several times Dr. Roberts was thought to have been nailed with crime, but each time, when arraigned upon the charge of performing a criminal operation, he managed to escape through technicalities.

At last, when Coroner Dugan had a clear case, he found that Roberts had gathered all his effects and had fled. His wife was arrested and confessed. Roberts, Coroner Dugan said, had been hiding in Boston and New York.

HEAD OF 15 PLACES.

It was the arrest of Mrs. Elizabeth Ashmead, known as the woman in black to associates, and as Dr. Conde to her scores of women, that the first blow at the great Philadelphia malpractice syndicate was struck.

Her house at 256 South Twelfth street, in the heart of the old-fashioned quarter, was one of the headquarters of the combine, and 660 North Twelfth street, where Dr. Roberts was chief, was another of the 15 most important such places.

The malpractice syndicate was perfectly organized—still is, in fact. Coroner Dugan, who fought it, and sent many of its members to jail and others out as fugitives from justice, admits that the evil is only checked and that the brains behind the murderous but immensely profitable enterprise are still at work.

In fact, the real men and women, the actual heads of the combine, were never caught, although Dugan's detectives several times thought they had them.

HORRIBLE PRACTICES.

Their system was perfect. All the "hospitals" were carefully connected with private wires. Communication could be had at once, and secretly, and there were secret passages and apertures. Apparently reputable physicians asked for blank death certificates from the bureau of health, and got them. These were sold to and used by the syndicate. Some of these apparently reputable physicians nearly went to jail because of it.

Ghoul-ish and terrible things went on in these hospitals. Bodies were dismembered and sent out in boxes to other establishments of the syndicate, where the fragments were buried in outlying districts or else consumed in furnaces and in beds of quicklime.

Babies were thrown, living in many cases, into the mouths of furnaces. Some of the details that were given Coroner Dugan by witnesses during the investigation

were so shocking as to be almost unbelievable.

BODY POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED.

At the Harvard medical school yesterday afternoon Mrs. Catherine F. Geary and her two daughters, Mrs. Bertha Cornwell and Miss Evelyn Geary, identified the assembled body of the suit case victim as that of Susanna Agnes Geary.

The features were so well preserved that the three women instantly recognized the head. The mother and daughters were familiar with the gold crown and the filling of the teeth, and an examination of them made the recognition doubly sure.

If there ever was a technical doubt that the two suit cases and the satchel, one found at Winthrop and two in Boston harbor, contained the body of Susanna Geary, the little dancer of the "Shepherd King" company, it was dispelled yesterday when the little girl's mother and two sisters saw the familiar face.

ACTIONS WERE ELOQUENT.

Not by words was the identification first made, but by the frantic outcries of the women and by hysterical attempts to press their lips to those of the dear, dead daughter and sister. Taken into the presence of the dismembered body and the severed head which had lain so long on the bottom of the harbor, the three women gave no one the task of asking if they recognized the remains.

It was pitiful, it was sad that it was necessary, but the law demands that some one shall make an adequate identification of the body in a case of homicide.

So those three women had to endure an ordeal which was almost as distressing to the medical and police witnesses as to the women taken to the Harvard medical school to give the prosecution positive evidence upon which to base the accusations made against Dr. Percy D. McLeod, Louis W. Crawford, William E. Howard and Mary S. Dean.

TO DRAW THE VEIL.

A description of the scene at the medical school yesterday afternoon would not be a dainty story. Indeed, from the day the first suit case was found until yesterday, the succession of incidents which form the narrative of the misfortune, the death, the mutilation and the concealment of the body of little Susie Geary were far too revolting to be dealt with with cold pen.

If ever the veil should be drawn to shut private grief from the curious eye of the public, yesterday was the time. For weeks this Geary family has suffered, and yesterday came the climax of their grief.

Capt. Joseph Dugan, than whom there is no more tactful and resourceful member of the Boston police department, called at the Geary home at 685 Main street, Cambridge, shortly after noon yesterday to ask the mother and sisters to accompany him to the Harvard medical school.

THE PARTS ASSEMBLED.

Before that, Medical Examiner Harris, with the associate examiner, Dr. Stedman, had viewed the head of the victim at Briggs' undertaking rooms and were satisfied that it had been severed from the torso which was found in Winthrop harbor Sept. 21.

Photographs were made for the purposes of the trial of the alleged perpetrators of the crime, and then the exhibit with the young woman's satchel in which it was found, were taken to the medical school.

The Geary family has been annoyed by so many visitors that when Capt. Dugan called yesterday it took him some little time to assure them of his errand. Mrs. Geary and her younger daughter, Evelyn, were taken into the carriage, and the elder daughter, Mrs. Bertha Cornwell, was found at her home on Windsor street.

By the time the three women reached the medical school Prof. William F. Whitney had assembled the parts of the body in the basement of the building, and with Prof. Whitney were Medical Examiner Harris and his office associate, Dr. Brown.

IT WAS SUSIE.

Before taking the mother and the two daughters to the little room the physicians cautioned them to be brave and prepared them for the distressing sight. Then they were led in and the covering removed from the face of the dead girl.

All three burst into tears and lamentations, crying out the name of their lost one and telling each other that it was "Susie."

That mother and those two sisters already knew as well as they could know anything. Yet the shock on first glance at the Geary dead was as great as if they had been without warning brought to look at the dead face of one they believed alive.

The mother lost all control of herself. With convulsive sobs she tottered and would have prostrated herself beside the bier had not the restraining arms of Capt. Dugan and three physicians held her.

MOTHER VERY FAINT.

Overcome with emotion at the spectacle, the two daughters, crying their sister's name, attempted what the mother had been prevented from doing, and only the strong persuasion of the men deterred them from pressing their lips against those of the dead.

It took many minutes to calm the agitation of the women, and then Capt. Dugan asked them if the head was that of Susan. They answered "yes," and as he pressed them further they said they knew the features.

In 15 minutes the women were calm enough to assist in a more certain examination.

Miss Evelyn Geary was with her sister two years ago when Dr. John E. Hale filled her teeth, and yesterday the young girl recognized the gold crown and the gold filling.

The identification had been made complete and at 1:45 p. m. the three women left.

As they were leaving the three once more hysterically showed their affection and grief, but they were gently led away. Once outside Mrs. Geary became very weak and faint. Capt. Dugan and her daughters supported her to the carriage, and the three women were driven to Mrs. Cornwell's home on Windsor street, Cambridge.